Photo source: University of Massachusetts Boston News

On May 18, 2019, The Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation (Leadership Institute) at UMass Boston hosted the sixth annual Leadership Forum on Early Education Research, Policy, and Practice.

The day-long forum featured presentations by early educators graduating from the Leadership Institute.

Here are some of the things they said about the lessons they have learned.

Early educators enrolled in “Leadership in Early Care and Education: Lessons Learned”

Anne Boursiquot:

“I have learned how important it is to be an advocate in our communities for children and families. It is important that early educators get involved in civic engagement and communicate to politicians about policy and improving and upgrading the standards of ECE. It takes many levels of participants to reach all the goals that we have in our own communities and on a larger scale.”

Joelle Houlder:

“There are many ways to get to the same place. It is important to accept people for who they are, where they are, and also grasp the mindset that in order to lead, you must also follow.”

Shenchieh Li:

“In order to find a position that will fit my personal values in an early education, it is important for me to organize my strengths to serve my work well. If we focus on being inclusive of positive opinions and strategies, we will be on a path of creating meaningful change.”

Patricia Felix:

“Anyone can be a leader at any point in their journey. Being a leader is having an idea and a drive for change. Once we start to understand that leadership is less about power and more about collaboration and partnership, we will break boundaries and expectations across all systems of constructs.”

Tamairi Rivera:

“This course made me think about who I was as a leader, how I could motivate those around me to advocate for themselves, and how I want to teach my daughter to be a leader. After taking this course I feel reassured about my leadership skills and I cannot wait to raise a future leader!”

Early educators enrolled in Small Business Innovation Cohort 1 (Roxbury/Project Hope)

Carolina Zabala:

“After being part of the Small Business Innovation Cohort, I am more confident about my ability to create a business plan for my family child care business.”

Awilda Herrera:

“Because of the small business innovation course, I am in control of my business: I can manage the budget and have a better marketing plan.”

Elizabeth Santana:

“In the small business leadership program, we learned how to use shared services to save money and access resources to support our child care businesses.”

Early Educators enrolled in Small Business Innovation Cohort 2 (Dorchester/UMB Institute)

Janet Rivera:

“The teachers in the small business course are wonderful, and I learned so many things from the other child care providers in the course. We shared a lot of laughter too.”

Paula Saa:

“In the small business innovation cohort, I learned that I am a business woman. I learned how to manage my budget and increase my revenue.”

Jennifer Jimenez:

“I learned to not be afraid of changes. I learned how to be both a teacher and a great leader in this field.”

Early educators enrolled in Lessons Learned 2019

Greer McCormick:

“I was hesitant when I began this leadership program because I am relatively new to the field as a first year Boston Public Schools kindergarten teacher. I didn’t think I had enough experience or knowledge to contribute to the conversations and discussions. I’m the kind of person who learns through doing, so as the person with the least experience, I felt inadequate. What I now see is how important it is to get involved in programs like the Post Master’s Certificate (PMC), especially when you are new to the field, to gain the knowledge to be an advocate for early education. This goes beyond the classroom setting. I can now speak about policy and research which affects me daily in my classroom as a kindergarten teacher.”

Valda Gabriel:

“My two years spent in the PMC program was a great experience for me. I met classmates who are equally passionate about Early Childhood Education. I met the finest instructors and advocates, and the texts recommended for each course along with the additional resources will serve as great resources for me in my continued journey as an Early Childhood Educator. In the Leadership and Change course, I learned the importance of being a good leader and the different types of leadership styles that can be used while leading change. There is one vital lesson that I learned that I never knew before, and that is the importance of measuring change. My take away from this course is, ‘If I would like to institute change, but I am unable to measure the change, then there will not be any change.’ ”

Ozden Pinar-Irmak:

“The leadership course taught me that it doesn’t matter who I am and where I sit; I can inspire and lead others from anywhere, even without a title or position. Before taking the class, I was thinking that I was not a person who can lead people or make a change in their life. However, the course changed my mind and gave me a positive perspective that gives me the courage to stand and advocate for my ideas and for new ways of thinking that are helpful for taking a leadership position in my career.”

Yiyang Guan:

“Focusing on inequity early in children’s lives is my reason for working in early childhood education. Every time I answer the question raised by my relatives and friends back in China of what I study in U.S., their first response is always “Oh, you are going to make a fortune if you come back and open an early childhood center. There is a big market!” It is a true that there is a big market. I believe that education is not charity. Teachers should not be poor or constantly worry about their own living. But I don’t care about taking money out of parents’ pockets because I did not learn to be a businesswoman who targets making profit. I am learning to become a leader in early childhood education. Therefore, I will try to focus on the bigger picture of how to deal with the educational inequity that occurs early in the lives of children who are already living in disadvantaged conditions.”

Rhonda Fitzgerald:

“I learned that no step forward is too small. Making a phone call to a politician or talking to others about issues in the field of Early Childhood Education is a step toward change. My first class as part of PMC was the Early Childhood Policy class. This class really had the biggest impact on me. It made me more in tune with what is happening in the field. This class and others gave me the confidence to take a role in the Massachusetts Teachers Association as a Political Action Leader for 2019-2020 school year.”

Nikki Nash MacIsaac:

“Before I started on this journey I felt very much alone. I had this internal drive to make a difference in my field, but I didn’t see many others around me who were looking to do the same, and I had no idea where to start. When I joined the PMC I was suddenly surrounded by others with the same passion and drive that I felt, and I was no longer alone.

“I also came to realize how important it is that we do our own research in our schools and classrooms. What we typically consider research is based on the things that governmental agencies, policymakers, and those with the money to make it happen identify as important. But those things are only a piece of the puzzle. The research we do, as practitioners, to figure out how to address the things that are important to us is just as important, or perhaps even more important, when it comes to creating the change that we as individual teachers need to make better schools, classrooms, and workplaces. The PMC has taught me to dream big.”

Lindsay Beatty:

“I used to think that strong leadership was transformational leadership. I worked under a transformational leader who created a highly motivating vision for the future of our school, and who had the ability to energize the entire school to pursue this vision. I, along with many other teachers, viewed this leader as the source of all wisdom, direction, and inspiration as we worked together to challenge the status quo. However, the trouble with a transformational leader is that followers may lose their motivation when the leader is absent. This was certainly the case when our principal left the school. Without her presence, the teachers lost much of the enthusiasm and motivation they had in pursuing the vision. I now believe that empowering leadership is the strongest form of leadership because an empowering leader leads others to lead themselves, encouraging initiative, self-responsibility, self-confidence, self-goal setting, and self-problem solving so that there are not “followers,” but many leaders working together in pursuit of a shared vision.

“I have been inspired by my classmates here. We have worked hard because we believe in early education and care for young children, and we have first-hand experience to know that the system needs leaders like us to make change.”

Kelly Brown:

“I learned we cannot be leaders on our own. In my own research and plans for change, I will certainly need to be a leader, but my leadership will not be enough. When hoping to make changes at a systemic level, there are many people who must get involved and not just be involved but be motivated to make the same changes I am passionate about. While I have an idea of what I think will work, I am by no means an expert, so I will need leaders from each field to share their wisdom in a joint effort. I know that if I can be a leader and produce more leaders, I will have a community of people who can motivate each other.”

Christina Schoechl:

“We need to inspire change from within the field. The early education field has relied on policy makers to implement societal and fieldwide change. However, we, as early childhood educators, have to come together to have our voices heard. We are the ones that know what works and what doesn’t work in the classroom. We are the ones that can inspire changes and implement new strategies. We can, no one else. I learned there are ways to empower early educators, to make them aware of their own leadership skills, to teach them how to inform change from within the field. We can create a stronger and more powerful education system if we believe in ourselves.”